With the death of the venerated Senator Ted Kennedy, there is much debate as to whether the liberalism that he so aggressively promoted dies with him.
My answer is NO, and also that we, as a nation, cannot afford to allow the concept of social justice, promoting a level playing field, regulating corporations in the public interest, and working to democratize our political system, to disappear.
We have come too far in the past century to go back to the concept of laissez faire economics, and to Social Darwinism and corporate monopoly–that is, back to the mentality of the Gilded Age of the late 19th century and to the equally conservative era of the 1920s and the 1980s.
We cannot allow the Reagan philosophy that goverment is the problem to predominate, as government is the only way to promote necessary political reform, economic competition, and social change.
Leaving everyone to their own selfish interests would mean a repudiation of everything Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson worked so hard for with the Square Deal, the New Freedom, the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society. It would also be a rejection of prominent legislators of both parties–such as Robert LaFollette, Sr, George Norris, Robert Wagner, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Paul Wellstone, and Ted Kennedy–who dedicated their congressional careers to the advancement of their fellow citizens.
Progressive and liberal thought and action have brought about the great reforms that have improved our country in the past century, and we cannot allow Ted Kennedy’s death to be portrayed as the end of progressivism and liberalism.
Kennedy’s passing, instead, must be a clarion call to rededicate ourselves to what he spent his whole life promoting–the vision of the Roosevelts, Wilson, the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson–a better, more equitable and just society.
Barack Obama must take this moment to reassess his nice guy image, and start to use the aggressive tactics of FDR and LBJ to accomplish the great challenges of the future, beginning with universal health care! He can become in reality as well as image the new leader of progressive and liberal change, and the country demands it!